Benefits Access for College Completion: Lessons Learned from a Community College Initiative to Help Low Income Students

Abstract

The Benefits Access for College Completion (BACC) initiative was a multi-year initiative designed to provide community college students with access to a full range of public benefits in order to reduce financial barriers to college completion. These benefits include, but are not limited to, those in the box below. This project largely broke new ground. Although a handful of colleges across the country are helping students access public benefits, whether through Single Stop USA, the Benefit Bank, or Seedco’s Earn Benefits, very few colleges approached embedding benefits access into college processes as systemically as this project set out for the colleges participating in BACC. The goal of the initiative was to develop sustainable operational and funding strategies for integrating services into existing community college operations to help eligible low-income students more easily access public benefits. The efforts of institutions ranged from providing students with accurate information about benefits to screening them for program eligibility, assisting them with enrollment by filling out applications and gathering documentation, and focusing on changing policies to better serve students who are eligible but not enrolled.